Tuesday, 21 June 2011

Chess eBooks

At some point I will have to get myself a portable eBook reader, but for now I just whatever runs on my Netbook or PC. The Opera browser, which I sometimes use, has an eBook widget that allows you to read books in the ePub format, as well as manage your library. At this stage I've only downloaded a few books, and surprisingly, not all of them were about chess!
However one chess book I did find was "The Exploits and Triumphs, in Europe, of Paul Morphy, the Chess Champion" by Frederick Milnes Edge. It is not a chess book in the classical sense, in that it doesn't contains games or diagrams (though this may the fault of the conversion process), but instead covers Morphy's travel through Europe in 1858. It also reports upon the First American Chess Congress, and has a chapter devoted to the leading London chess clubs of the time.
I find these historical pieces quite interesting, as it describes a chess that is far more leisurely than we see today (even at the amateur level). The description of London club life often fills me with envy, and often wonder if such a club would be viable today.
I downloaded a copy of this book from www.manybooks.net and found it (and a couple of others) by simply searching for 'chess'.